Rules of Magic

Magic has rules.

Blessed be the Maiden Goddess on this holy Sabbat of Ostara.

No not that kind of magic. I mean fictional magic.

Some books have very detailed rules of magic, while others are more laid back. One series with the loosest rules of magic I can immediately think of would be Harry Potter. Harry didn't have mana, or even get tired if he cast too many spells (as far as I'm aware of, please correct me if I'm wrong), nor did he have to do any setup or preparation. The only limits were that they had to use words and wands.

Except for this badass reading Stephen Hawking

Kids' books are more likely to have loose rules (or no rules at all), but on the other end there are some books that have such tight, planned-out rules that they rival some hard science fiction books. Both can be frustrating to a reader because magic should be believable, but also fun.

Here's a rundown of magics that I've come across and/or used. They are usually a mixed and matched to fit the story.

Physics

Some people like to anchor magic with physics, and I use a little bit of this myself. To create a fireball, Crystal has to gather heat from her surrounding area. A witch creating a fireball would then see their breath fogging up. The same would be for ice, in order to freeze something, a witch would have to heat up the air around them. Realistically using these two abilities would risk hypo and hyperthermia if used on a grand enough scale. If you are writing using magic of this caliber, consider using it more creatively than just an attack. A good example is in the Dresden Files Series, Harry manages to shoot a fireball up into the sky not to attack something, but so that he could draw heat from a lake and freeze the surface, giving him a chance to run across the surface.

Knowledge

In my personal opinion, this one is pretty weak. You need to read dozens upon dozens of books just to light a candle with your mind. Instead, consider real-life hobbies. You are building a deck.

Fancy.

Do you need to read books and books and books before you can even pick up a hammer? Heck no, but it's probably a good idea. You can build a deck with absolutely no knowledge or experience. The wood will split because you didn't finish it, the posts will rot because you didn't use treated wood, the hot tub will collapse because you built it with shims. It won't be a good deck, but you still had the power to build a deck. The same really should be said for magic.

Mana

Mana is a general term for "magic power" it's pretty common in videogames, that gauge below your health meter that is always blue for some reason. Mana is typically used in some form or another. It's why a character gets tired after casting a bunch of magic. Mana comes from various sources and depends on the book your reading. It can be from within, from the air, from someone's life source, from specific items. It can also be called nearly anything: energy, essence, MP, ether, essence.

Object enchantment

Even if mages require books or have mana-based magic, there are almost always objects imbued with magic. Only in a small handful of books do you read about a mage actually charging the object with said powers, and even then, it's always on purpose. You never hear about mages accidentally creating enchanted items with a spell gone awry or even simply by a mage standing too close (I like to think of ambient magic having the properties of radiation.)

Ritual

Summoning a circle, using specific tools, Latin, rhyming words or songs. Ritual-type magic is seen more for traditional witches and less mages or sorcerers.

Others

Jim Butcher's Codex of Alera uses "furies" or spirits, for magic.

The Mortal Instruments series uses runes.

And stupidity. Runes and stupidity.

And then there's the general "born with a natural affinity" that books seem to love.



There are lots of ways to get magic, but what do you do once you have it?

The most popular is the four elements: earth, fire, air, and water. Fire is always super popular because it doesn't take a lot of brain power to write, so it's always refreshing to see the other elements used as a primary. I don't mean having the power of air and pushing someone over with it, either. If you have the power of air and feel like killing someone, how about sucking it straight out of their lungs? Bet that would work pretty well. Air is always seen as the weakest, daintiest magic, but given some serious consideration, I bet a good author could make an air-based mage pretty formidable.

Sometimes, when a writer is feeling "really creative," they'll throw in other elements. Light and shadow being another two. Occasionally earth will be split in two, creating rock and plant magics. Ice and water are separated quite often, because apparently the temperature can make a difference. Healing, protective, summoning, if you want to get into more obscure concepts. Hey, you know who would be perfect in a medical facility during war time? A fire mage. I'm not kidding. Got a wound? let's cauterize that sucker!

A character of mine used in a collaborative writing forum used completely random spells. The most memorable being a battle golem made of cat litter.

That said, use "magic elements" more creatively than what's been done to death. Better yet, think of a totally different magic system. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson uses ingested metals to create unique powers that totally blew my mind.

Do some research outside of reading this post. Look up "rules of magic" or think back to some books you've read. Magic is such a nebulous concept, so why have we allowed ourselves to assume such cliche rules about it?

Writing Progress

I'm going to take a moment to sit down and talk to you. Not at you like I do with most of my posts, but to you.

Yes, you.

As you may know I started this blog as a way to promote my writing. I post the occasional helpful writing tip as well as a plethora of other things.

Satyrs anyone?

But I've noticed that, in the process, I don't talk much about my actual writing. Oh I give examples and the like, but if I were to personally ask any of you what I'm currently writing you'd just shrug your shoulders and say "I dunno."

When I gave myself a moment to really stop and think about it, I realized I have never told you guys because I'm afraid of letting you down. I don't want to hype a story only to make you guys wait two, three, maybe even four years (I'm being highly pessimistic here) to be able to read it, and that's if you even get to read it at all. What would be worse than announcing a story only later to scrap it because it never worked out?

The problem with not telling you guys anything at all is that you're left in the dark, and then you might start wondering if I'm even doing anything at all.

But fear not, today that all changes! I trepidly step out into unknown territory and reveal to you guys all of my writing progress, whether it's nearing completion or just a spark in my mind, including what round number of editing I'm in. To give you an idea, Dusted took 3-4 full edits, beginning to end. This won't be an exact number for all of my manuscripts, as the length of the story and how much work it needs will vary. Some may require only a few editing rounds, some may need tons.

So, here is my honest progress (the number of them should also show you why you shouldn't pitch your own ideas to writers):

Dusted: Needs new cover and editing.

All Just Survivors: On editing round 2, has 76,395 words. Procrastinating. (To give you a comparison, Dusted clocks in at 74,858 words, and it gained 10,000-20,000 words after editing.)

The Crystal Witch: 17,192 words in. Current focus.

Dreaming (AKA: Dusted 2: The Dustening): 32,963 words. Currently on hiatus.

The Witches of Dunraven (working title): 13,408 words. Resisting urge to work on it so I can focus on other, more complete works.

Lady of Crows: A spark. Resisting urge to even start it so I can focus on other work.


So there they are. This doesn't even include abandoned works, ideas that aren't even a spark yet, or works that need reviewing or writing, but aren't even on the back burner (mentally double or even triple this list for that.)

The problem is, when it comes to writing, I work best at shotgunning. I used to force myself to work on one thing at a time, but that often caused me to lax, sometimes for months at a time. By shotgunning, I'm all over the place. When I find myself getting tired of one thing, I'll jump to the other and work on it until I'm feeling up to working on the first one again. I'll admit, I probably won't get something done in a reasonable amount of time, but it's far more efficient than burning out and doing nothing at all. Best of all, when someone else is helping to read through and edit one manuscript, I'm working on yet another.

Have any questions? Curious about any of them? I'd be happy to provide descriptions of them (note that the less they're worked on the more vague of an answer you'll get). A few people have asked about the sequel to Dusted, so expect to hear about that in more detail another time.

Just Whinging

Although more of a British term, this really does qualify more as whinging than whining according to the definitions. But I'm not here to throw around definitions, I'm here on full whinge-rant mode.

It started with my usual checking out of the Top 100 Kindle book links when I came across this

The Proposition (Billionaire boss) a SEXY romance erotic short

Megan is amazed when her fabulously rich and handsome boss decides to give her a very no-strings, very sexual proposition. She already found him highly desirable and he’d certainly assured her that no matter her answer, he’d respect it. So what was it going to be?

"Oh Jen, you dirty girl!" you cry between mouthfuls of Doritos (I don't judge my readers), "You've been looking through the Romance section of the Kindle store again, haven't you?"

No, you know where I found this?

Science Fiction/Fantasy where it is currently #1 in the bestseller category.

Wait what?

Did I miss something in the description? Is Megan actually a robot? Or mister "billionaire boss" is from another planet, right? Where a ship crashed and there are symbiotic telepathic cats?

Yes, it is technically "fantasy" but not of the swords and sorcery type that is implied. That's why there is a romance section, people can keep their trashy smut in a separate category so that the nerds of the world don't get lightheaded and pass out from the cover alone.

Whoever wrote this book must look at a library and see it broken down into just two categories "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction" where everything is simply shelved as is with no regard toward any narrowed genre.

Yes, I admit romance and fantasy often blur lines, especially urban fantasy (examples include: vampiesvampiresvampiresvampiresvampires) and romance, but when the only "fantasy" are two people getting hot and heavy, and not one mention of anything even slightly fantastical in nature, you're publishing in the wrong categories.

While I'm still in a whinging mood, let's keep going.

Lost in Minecraft: A Minecraft Novel Ft Sky and Captain Sparklez

What
the
actual
trebuchet.

To keep this blog's language PG-13 a trebuchet has been chosen to fling 4 letter words in lieu of the author herself.

Even if you know who Skydoesminecraft and Captainsparklez are, you have to admit this is pretty stupid. Why pick specifically on Lost in Minecraft: A Minecraft Novel Ft Sky and Captain Sparklez (which will now be shortened to LiM:AMNFSaCP) when there are dozens of others?

Because it is #707 in the overall Kindle bestsellers and, narrowing it down, #10 in the Fantasy section.

Who in the hell is buying this? Eight year olds? With Kindles? This costs three dollars! Eight year olds, with Kindles, are throwing money at a book based on a blocky videogame that stars people named Skydoesminecraft and Captain Sparklez.

"This book is so awesome. I hope their will be more books about it. Go sky!! Yay. I really love this book"

Real review there people, 2 out of 3 people apparently thinking it's quite helpful, too.

Yes, eight year olds (did I mention they have Kindles?) can throw money at whatever they want I suppose, but the problem is that we have someone who probably didn't even ask for permission from Mojang (the company that owns the rights to Minecraft), Skydoesminecraft, or Captainsparklez before writing and publishing fanfiction that the author is making money from.

Worst of all, being in the top anything category, it pushes out good books from top categories with its garbage.

Okay, whinge over.